This is a British attempt to cutoff retreating Italian troops by advanced forces of the 7th Armored Division. It must first deal with an Italian armored brigade, that although have not trained together still well able to corral the British tanks. The Italians have slower M11/39 and M13/40's with heavier armor. The British are speedier but littler armored. Their guns are about equal with a slight firepower advantage to the Italian 47mm to the British 2pdr, but the 2pdr has a better range. So the British need to stay back and maneuver to get good shots while the Italians need to close in to kill.

In my play, the British were able to get across board 2 before the Italian tanks woke up. The Italians moved quickly to close on the British while they started to maneuver. Once they closed to range, opening shots were misses but the Italians were subsequently able to get a kill on a long range shot on a A9. This started the British down turn. The British tried to maneuver around the massed Italian tanks, but the Italian gunners were to good and the British armor too thin, an A13 was hit as well. The British 2pdrs could not get the kills on the numerous M13/40 and M11/39s, but finally scored hits on some eager tanks. But this allowed other Italian tanks to maneuver for cross fire shots, leaving more British tanks burning and 5 steps lost, so the British victory conditions were out. Slowly the Italian tanks pushed the remaining British tanks back on to board 2 and giving the retreating infantry room to get down the coastal road to safety and the win.

Although this was interesting the play could have been better, the Italian tanks are stronger than the scenario intro and conclusion portrays, giving the British a bit of a false sense of easy success. But you have to watch out for good Italian player maneuvering their tanks.

Author	treadasaurusrex (Britain)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Draw
Participants	CavDo
Play Date	2024-04-12
Language	English
Scenario	AfKo049

This was an 11-session, bloody, play-through that we began last September and finally completed as a DRAW, today. I led elements of the attacking British 4th 'Black Rats' Armoured Bridage in this overlong alternate history fracas in Libya. The cunning, Cav Do led the fearsome, combined arms Italian force in what a very fun to play battle, spoiled only be the oddly-written victory conditions and the stultifying, surrender rule.

As others have reported, this was a British attempt to intercept retreating, poor quality Italian troops by a probing force of the British 7th Armoured Division. The strength of the Babini Brigade's tanks make this one a relatively balanced scenario that is worth playing in both SHARED & SOLO modes.

The major challenge for the Brits is to use their superior mobility to set up crossfire, long-range, armor piercing shots against the relatively-slow, but higher quality, Italian tank platoons. This was a high maneuver game using the FOW, extended assault and excess initiative optional rules. For the bulk of our play-through, the Brits had better luck with combat & morale recovery die rolls, especially when the charging British armor finished crossing Map 2 and came to grips with the retreating Italian infantry & trucks. Both sides exceeded their required step losses by game turn 16. making a draw almost a foregone, somewhat disappointing conclusion. We lost track of the combat 7-die rolls, but they seemed to crop up whenever the Italians had maneuvered adroitly to setup cross fire situations against the rather crummy British tanks. There were a total of 19 FOW-shortened game turns and the step loses were high for the opposing sides.

This one needs a rewrite, a reduction in game length, and a more thoughtful set of victory conditions. The Italian infantry & the Brit light tanks are WAY TOO fragile, so casualties are bound to be high. I give it a 3, for the fun factor when playing with a challenging & unpredictable opponent and as a training scenario for those new to high mobility maneuvers, fighting withdrawals & meeting engagements in PG. However, it really deserves a 2 as published.